Planting trees provides hope of a positive future for Wildlife, Climate, People, and the Planet. Over the last month, we've been busy planting trees at four locations in Far North Queensland and Northern New South Wales.  

Another Road Closed in the Daintree Lowland Rainforest.

The creation of a network of roads in the 1980’s to support development in the Daintree Lowland Rainforest was an ecological disaster. Thankfully we are now able to start revesting the negative impact.  

Land purchase in the Daintree Lowland Rainforest for conservation has been occurring since 1993 and hundreds of properties have been acquired by non-profit organisations and governments. The purchase of a significant number of strategically located properties has made some roads obsolete. We can now begin closing and revegetate roads that are no longer required.

On the 13^th of July, we helped close another service road in the Daintree Lowland Rainforest by planted 675 trees. Thank you to the wonderful volunteer tree planters who helped out in the Daintree Lowland Rainforest - Justin, Gabi, Dave, Connie, Kelvin, James, John, Dianna, other Daintree locals, and to our partners at Daintree Life. 

Closing down a service road in the Daintree Lowland Rainforest

Closing this service road in the Daintree Rainforest will reverse the impacts of past development and will require the planting of 1,000 trees and will be completed in the coming month. It will also restore rainforest habitat for wildlife including the Southern Cassowaries, Spectacled Flying-fox, Striped Possums, Bennetts Tree-kangaroos, and Musky Rat-kangaroos. Other benefits from the road closure and revegetation include improved tourism amenity, cessation of illegal dumping and camping and removal of the burden on Douglas Shire Council of costly maintenance.

Dave from Daintree Life has had the job of drilling the holes!

Rainforest Reserves ready to grow

On the 11^th of July, we visited the Barrine Park Nature Refuge on the Atherton Tablelands and added to the 1,000 trees planted there earlier in 2020. We also saw the nursery managed by Rainforest Reserves Australia. The trees grown at the nursery are being planted to expand the rainforest adjacent to the Crater Lakes Nation Park / World Heritage Area. This increases habitat for the endangered Southern Cassowary and other threatened and rare species like the Lumholtz Tree-Kangaroo and the Musky Rat-kangaroo. The nursery can produce 100,000 trees per year and the partnership between Rainforest Reserves Australia and the Rainforest 4 Foundation is now aiming to increase production in 2020 and beyond.

Tree planting at Barrine Park Nature Refuge. Photo by Steven Nowakowski

The nursery can produce 100,000 trees per year. Photo by Steven Nowakowski

Growing the Big Scrub Rainforest with Cromwell Farms

Tree planting at Cromwell Farms at Goonengerry in Northern NSW has resumed with another 2,500 trees planted. After taking a break for a few months to be compliant with Covind-19 requirements we started planting again on the 27^th of June with 500 trees and quickly followed with 2,000 more. The number of trees planted in 2020 at Cromwell Farms is now 6,429. This includes the 3,929 planted with Reforest Now in February and March. This is helping establish sustainable agriculture by fencing off creeks and revegetating steep land. We are following a plan of management prepared by an ecologist that guides the restoration of the rainforest and the protection of threatened species found on the property. This is also helping to restore the Big Scrub Rainforest which was once the largest expanse of subtropical rainforest in Australia and covered an area of 75,000 hectares between Byron Bay, Lismore, and Ballina in Northern NSW. 

Kelvin Davies plants a tree to restore the Big Scrub Rainforest

We planted 1,000 trees at Goonengerry today to celebrate National Tree Day on the 2nd of August. Thank you to all the tree planting volunteers including the staff and families of Enova Community Energy. 

Enova Community Energy staff, family, and friends planted 1,000 trees

1,000 more were planted on the 8^th of August   

Huonbrook and Wanganui

We are continuing to restore the rainforest in the Byron Bay hinterland to help the community to recover from the bushfires that occurred in November 2019. Volunteers are working alongside the Madhima Gulgan Rangers at Wanganui and Huonbrook to achieve the hands-on work. The Madhima Gulgan Community Association is a self-managed initiative established in 2008 to support Aboriginal people and their families by creating employment. The members of the team are experienced and trained bush regenerators and every week they are working to remove weeds to prepare tree planting sites for the volunteers. This has resulted in 1,000 trees being planted so far of a total of 5,000 planned for this location. Our efforts to restore habitat will help Threatened species like the Alberts Lyrebird and Marbled Frogmouth and rebuild habitat for many mammals including the Koalas and the Red-legged Pademelon. We've added more information on this project here: 

Tree planter Camila Lopez

Ecologist Wren McLean drilling holes for trees to be planted

Red-legged Pademelon

Thank you to our project partners! Our project partners have helped in achieving these outcomes, they include Madhima Gulgan Community Association, Rainforest Reserves Australia, Daintree Life, Reforest Now, Brunswick Valley Landcare, Cromwell Farms, Byron Rangers, Earthscapes, and participating landowners.